Stephen Nobel
The Choreography of Color
The grid he creates, a stage.
Bozeman, 2021
To Nobel, his work is a homage to color — and the grid he creates, a stage.
Color, here, is the performer.The Choreography of Color is a further investigation of the delightful musicality and performative aspects that color theory has on Nobel's work. It has been almost sixty years since Josef Albers' Interaction of Color was first published; we feel it is high time to explore the relativity of the medium of color, and our perceptions of it, through Nobel's newest work. Titles like Staccato, Polyphonia, NYCB Glass Pieces and Semiphores make the musical and balletic registers explicit — each cut-paper construction stages chromatic movement within the discipline of the grid.
Installation views
Composer of chromatic movement.
Stephen Nobel builds his works from cut Mi-Teintes paper, mounted in precise grids on mat board — flat fields of color whose interactions perform exactly the relativity Josef Albers described. The work is both rigorous and playful: ski shadows, jazz staccato, the New York City Ballet's Glass Pieces translated into chromatic steps.
The Choreography of Color was Nobel's first solo exhibition with Echo Arts, followed by a pop-up presentation of new work in 2025.